£500,000 boost to improve the central transport route

BICESTER has been given £500,000 extra funding to help ‘speed-up’ development of thousands of new homes.

The Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government allocated a total of £2.5m to nine garden towns across the country.

Bicester received £500,000 to support 13,000 new homes while Didcot was given £295,000 for 15,000 new homes.

Garden towns are part of a Government scheme to support the housing market.

Cherwell District Council, who submitted the funding bid, said the cash would be spent on “feasibility studies focused around master planning to improve the transport along the central corridor in Bicester – Kings End, Queens Avenue and Buckingham Road”.

“This new funding will help support the construction of more than 155,000 homes in nine places across the country. New communities not only deliver homes, but also bring new jobs and facilities and a big boost to local economies.”

Bicester’s MP Victoria Prentis said: “Bicester is leading the way in locally-led, sustainable housing projects, and this extra funding is very welcome.

“It will help local authorities speed up progress while making sure the infrastructure is in place to support our growing population.

“It has been brilliant to visit developments such as Graven Hill, which provides innovative solutions for prospective homeowners, such as serviced plots for self-builders, and I hope that this funding will promote and expand these opportunities.”

The government define a garden town as a development of more than 10,000 homes and garden villages as smaller settlements of between 1,500 and 10,000 homes.

Bicester was given garden town status in 2014 after a successful Cherwell council bid. Officers had to demonstrate plans for the expansion of the town provided affordable homes, schools and jobs while preserving the countryside.

Since then Cherwell has been given £1.47m to carry out feasibility studies to look at issues such as green spaces, transport links and the possibility of a new motorway exit south of junction nine.

The council said it would use the findings from the studies to support bids for capital grants to start the work.